


For You (I'd Start It Again)

by capkooks



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, First Loves, Past Violet/Minerva, Pining, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 13:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16451276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capkooks/pseuds/capkooks
Summary: When Minerva dies, all Violet can think is never, never again.





	For You (I'd Start It Again)

When Minerva dies, all Violet can think is never, never again.

Violet had known Minnie and Sophie all her life, and it felt like they were entwined with her until the end of time. It was just that nothing felt right without her in the first few years of Violet’s life, especially not when her parents had packed her bags and dragged her to the school. But Minnie was always good with people, something Violet always loved about her, and immediately saw right through her at age 7. So the girl walked up, introduced herself to the lonesome young Violet, and the rest became history.

For years, Minnie had been her best friend who knew everything about her, and was the only one who could read her like an open book. It was like she knew Violet’s heart inside-out - every bad mood, every thought, every feeling was attuned with Minnie like one half of a soul. Minnie could calm her down or make her laugh with the slightest gesture or words like no one else could.

It was a while until Violet realised why. Why did she feel so comfortable around Minnie over anyone else? Why was it Minnie the one she always wanted to be around, whose company is the only one that made Violet talk a lot? When it finally clicked, well - it clicked for both of them. They were 14 when Minnie had pulled Violet into a soft kiss by the lake, spear in hand, and it all made sense. With Minnie's hand in hers every time they went fishing or a stolen kiss before bedtime, things felt like they fell into place, like this was how it should always be - Minnie and Violet, Violet and Minnie. Even when the world began to crumble around them, Minnie was the one thing that held her together.

So it’s no surprise that losing her felt like a light that went out in Violet’s life, and things never felt right again for a long, long time.

It’s why she hates Clementine immediately. Violet’s pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Marlon crashing in from the gates and overlapping shouting at the picnic tables. He had stumbled in, Rosie barking by his side, and only then does Violet notice there's a girl, bruised and bloody and limp in Marlon’s arms. Her head is split open, eyes closed, and her little kid screaming by her side and everything just feels like some kind of bad omen that befell the school.

It takes two whole days for the girl to fully recover, and for the unsettling tremor in the air to subside. Perhaps it was a lie, that uneasy feeling. Because the first time Violet really looks at the girl, well, there’s only one thought. She’s cute, she really really is. Even from atop the courtyard, there’s no denying that Violet feels something, even the tiniest bit, for Clementine - something curious and interested for the shorter girl and whatever stories she has to tell about life outside the walls. And it’s weird, because even if she still can’t stop thinking about Minnie, Clementine starts to occupy a space in her thoughts, too.

But the more she weighs her creeping feelings for her, the more Violet counts her losses. All the people she’s had to watch leave her, all the people that knew her the most take pieces of her when they walked away or died. Thinks, Clementine is expendable. It’s a grim thought to have, thinking about the new girl’s death, but it’s the only thing swirling through her mind when she looks outside the gate and sees more walkers than usual. Then, Violet thinks about Brody and Mitch and Aasim out there in god knows what state, and the thought sticks. A car crash, a walker bite, it’s all the same for anyone and everyone, and maybe Clem will be just like everyone else - another flesh and bone to add to the ground eventually.

And Minnie, well - call Violet biased, but Minnie was different. She was soft and gentle, a real sweetheart who saw people for who they were and never deserved anything bad that happened to her. She was Violet’s other half, and so she hated killing, never got past the pain of watching a walker twitching away its last ebbs of life. Violet got over it early, can kill them smooth and quick between the eyes now, but for Minnie it just never got easier. Violet remembers the first time Minnie killed one, remembers her bloody hands, and how Violet eased the knife from her fingers and held them. Her hands were warm and shaking all night, and Violet thinks about how much she wished she was there to protect Minnie and Sophie.

However, when Violet first sees Clem emerge from the gates, knife in hand, there’s the thought that maybe Clem can be different, too. Violet sees her slaughter walkers like it’s mechanical, a kick and a stab and they all fall to her feet with a grace and ease that only years of independence and experience reaps. Clem is fearless and fierce out there and it suddenly makes sense what Louis sees in her. Violet tries not to make it obvious, how much she likes seeing the shorter girl with a tooth and a nail, but there's something mesmerising about Clementine. Violet thought she hadn’t had a type, but maybe this is it - Clem, bruised fists and bloody and a glint in her eyes. She tries not to think about how different that is from Minnie.

In fact, it’s been too much too lately that the two intermix in her mind, and she starts to think of Clementine more and more. Feelings are a very weird thing, a trick of the mind, something Violet wants to shove deep deep down and silence, but it's already too late. Sometimes, Violet can’t tell from up and down whenever Clem talks to her. The girl is friendly and nice, but what’s nice and what's flirting gets blurred whenever Clem compliments her. A little “you did great, Vi” makes her heart skyrocket, an “it’s nice talking to you” leaps a glimmer of hope. It’s hard not to fall for it, because Clem has the most sweetest smile and the softest of eyes that crinkle whenever Violet makes her laugh. She just… gets Violet, sees past the hostility and makes Violet’s tight grip around her heart loosen. Things like that are rare these days.

Because the truth is, the past year has been lonely. You’d think living in the school for years would breed familiarity, but being around everyone feels suffocating. Brody talks with an air of optimism that makes Violet want to choke, and everyone else was never a right fit to begin with. Not that Violet would ever let anyone else hear her thoughts - the boys could never understand feelings if she ever spelled it out for them, let alone anything Minnie-related. Even Tenn’s company has its limits, whose hopefulness never quite reaches Violet. But whenever she speaks to Clem, it feels like a breath of fresh air after holding it for so long. Being with her makes Violet relax - something about Clementine's attentiveness and patience, even with all of Violet's roughness, it strips her down bare and makes her offer up her heart unwillingly. And as terrifying as it is, as much as Violet had vowed to never ever open that door again, its as if Clementine had creeped in and made a space for herself.

When Violet gathers her will to go into Minnie and Sophie's old dorm, finding Clementine there felt like some kind of sign. The bedroom reminds her of the sweltering sun through the windows and lying with Minnie in the top bunk, listening to her hum a song, her hands in Violet's hair, and the feeling of being the only 2 people in the world. It's a painfully fading memory against this foreign place with its stripped and barren walls and it hurts to feel the loss - but it hurts less than she thought. Maybe Violet is healing, perhaps she really is, because when she talked to Clementine there - it felt like the first burst of sun on those summer mornings - nothing like Brody’s daydreams or Tenn’s optimism, but something concrete to believe in.

 

And for the first time in that long, long time, a light flickers.

  
But of course, with all good things, there's a catch. That night, Violet stands in the rain and watched Marlon point a gun at Clem's forehead. The truth that Minnie and Sophie never died would’ve felt like a miracle some months ago, something dreamt and imagined in the deepest pits of Violet’s wishful thinking. Instead, it just rips open a new void. It always felt like some kind of fever dream - that maybe Sophie and Minnie were just out there, that this was all some kind of elaborate joke waiting to unravel itself. And now that it was true, that they could really be alive and well, it makes Violet's stomach sink. That for an entire year, she sat around in her room crying her eyes out and thinking of all the ways she could’ve saved them when she was just wasting time. That for the first time, it was her that abandoned them, and not the other way around like it always was in Violet’s life.

When AJ had stained the courtyard with Marlon’s blood and the others began to turn on Clementine, Violet wishes she could say she tried, that she really did everything she could for them, but it was too obvious of a lie. Because the truth is, Violet was terrified - of everything that’s happened so far, of the tensions in their falling group, of her own lacking power to do and change anything in her life. So she lets the vote happen and the next day she’s watching Clem and AJ walk away, lamenting like all those days in her room a year ago.

It takes a gunshot to straighten her up. Violet sees Clem on the floor, a boot to her neck, and it makes her heart pound to eleven with a fear that sets her on her toes. There’s no thought or qualms at all when she draws the bow and aims, right on the woman who had the gun between Clem’s eyes, and prays to a God that it lands and that something right happens for once in her life. That if any good thing were to happen to Violet, let it be this - Clem and AJ, safe and sound and a million miles away from this mess.

No longer could Violet ignore that spark she felt the other day with Clem, that flicker of hope that started with Minnie all those years ago reigniting, and Violet wanted to protect her more than ever. Clem may be a fighter, Violet knows she could survive anything, but the gun pointed at Clem's skull had made Violet's blood run cold and it was hard not to imagine all the possibilities of a life without Clementine that hinged on this very moment. So Violet lets that spark lead her. Lets it draw the bow, release, land a hit. The last thing Violet hears are gunshots before her mind becomes a mess of a mantra, letting her body carry her through the forest until her and Louis are pounding at the gates.

That night, she cries in her room. Presses her palms into her eyes and tries not to think of her last memory of Clementine. Was it when Clem told her to shoot? Or did she tell them to run? Or was it a blurry sight of her and AJ running away?

The day keeps replaying itself in her mind all night, along with a million others about Minnie and Sophie in a similar cycle. She thinks about how even if a year has passed, nothing has changed, and that perhaps this was just bound to happen. That it’s just her luck to lose someone again, and that maybe it was stupid and foolish to think things could’ve ever ended up differently with Clementine.

And then the universe throws her into a loop. The light that went out flashes bright as can be when Clementine and AJ return to the school next morning, bruised and battered but _alive_. Ruby and Louis bring AJ in, whose tiny shivering body makes Violet's heart sting with guilt and regret for not following her gut ever since the vote that unsettled her.

But Clem was here now, alive and well and everything Violet could’ve ever hoped for, standing before her against any and all odds that stacked itself before them. Maybe the world isn't so cruel after all, and it takes all of Violet's energy not to bombard the tired girl with all her thoughts, wants to lay them out before Clementine, but their small smiles are enough.

  
In time, those small smiles blossom into something more. Leading the school together and planning for a raider attack wears Violet down to the bone, but Clem has become her anchor that's able to steady her with just a few soothing words. Every tedious day and sleepless night Violet spends obsessing and worrying about the school and her friends immediately quells at the sight of Clem by her side, hunched over their plans with concentration as their arms brush against each other.

While it wasn’t anything like what Violet had with Minnie, it was new and different and growing slowly and creeping up on her until it passed two weeks and Clem was now firmly entwined into her life. Every day she still thought of Minnie and where she could be, what she could be doing, and while it will always sting to think about her and Sophie and the void they left behind a year ago, the life Violet has now built around Clem was shaping into something that actually gives her hope for the first time. Had this been any other time, and the thought of letting someone else into her heart felt wrong and terrifying, as if she was throwing away an old piece of herself along with her love for Minnie, a vital part of her soul.

But whenever she was with Clementine, it just felt right. It was hard to deny that the girl was the cause of her every smile nowadays, and that whatever it was growing between them, Violet wanted to hold onto it so badly. She thinks of Minnie all those years ago, the girl she first fell in love with, and how she always wanted Violet to be happy, no matter what it was.

And maybe it was this. Between the car crashes and raider attacks and the boy from the woods, it all brought Clementine to Violet so it must mean something. For the first time in Violet's life, maybe this was it all along - the one person who would always stay by her side, the one different from everyone else. So from atop the belltower, high up and away from everything with just the two of them and the stars - Violet lets herself believe.

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of violentine feelings. this started from me thinking way too much about violet and her past with minnie bcos im a sucker for childhood friends to lovers and first loves, but wanted to explore that in relation to violet's romantic feelings for clem.
> 
> title changed from reaper, to for you by sales. 
> 
> i can't bear the weight of endings, but for you for you for you, i'd start it again


End file.
